First Report of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus Infecting Cucumber in Kuwait

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is an important vegetable crop in Kuwait. Between September 2013 to April 2014, symptoms suggestive of geminivirus infection were noticed. These included upward leaf curling, chlorosis, plant dwarfing, mosaic, yellowing, and fruit and leaf deformation. During the survey, high incidences of symptomatic plants were observed in both greenhouse and field-grown cucumber plants and estimates of yield loss exceeded 80% in both Wafra (south) and Abdally (north) Kuwait agricultural district areas. Total genomic DNA was extracted from symptomatic leaves cucumber plants using the Dellaporta method (Dellaporta 1983) and was subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with one set of TYLCV-specific primer TY1 (+), 5′-GCCCATGTA(T/C)CG(A/G)AAGCC-3′; TY2 (-), 5′-GG(A/G)TTAGA(A/G)GCATG(A/C)GTAC-3′ (Accotto et al. 2000). An amplicon of expected size (∼500 bp) representing the coat protein gene was obtained. DNA preparations from four of these plants were then used in RCA using the Templiphi Kit (GE healthcare) and were sequenced (GenBank Accession No. KR108214). Sequence comparisons showed that viral genome was most closely related to a Kuwaiti isolate of TYLCV with 99% nucleotide identity (Al-Ali et al. 2015). Subsequently, all the symptomatic plants from greenhouse and fields were tested by DAS-ELISA using TYLCV-specific antiserum (Bioreba) and 45 of the 50 samples tested were found to be infected by TYLCV. TYLCV infection of cucumber was reported earlier from Jordan (Anfoka et al. 2009). To our knowledge, this is the first report of TYLCV infecting cucumber in Kuwait. Considering its widespread occurrence in tomato and cucumber and the associated yield losses, management tactics need to be developed to reduce its impact. © 2016, American Phytopathological Society. All rights reserved.